1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to dynamic generation of a hypertext markup language (HTML) form by an application server configured for executing applications based on extensible markup language documents.
2. Description of the Related Art
An open standards-based Internet protocol (IP) network, such as the World Wide Web, the Internet, or a corporate intranet, provides client-server type application services for clients by enabling the clients to request application services from remote servers using standardized protocols, for example hypertext transport protocol (HTTP). The web server application environment can include web server software, such as Apache, implemented on a computer system attached to the IP network. Web-based applications are composed of HTML pages, logic, and database functions accessible by a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) script. In addition, the web server may provide logging and monitoring capabilities.
Typically web applications display HTML forms in the form of static HTML pages from stored HTML files, alternately the HTML pages are generated dynamically using CGI scripts. In both these cases it becomes difficult to customize HTML forms because such customization requires either modifying the stored HTML files or modifying the CGI script code.
Commonly-assigned, copending application Ser. No. 09/480,485, filed Jan. 11, 2000, entitled Application Server Configured for Dynamically Generating Web Pages for Voice Enabled Web Applications, the disclosure of which is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference, discloses an application server that executes a voice-enabled web application by runtime execution of extensible markup language (XML) documents that define the voice-enabled web application to be executed. The application server, in response to receiving a user request from a user, accesses a selected XML page that defines at least a part of the voice application to be executed for the user. The application server then parses the XML page, and executes the operation described by the XML page, for example dynamically generating an HTML page having voice application control content, or fetching another XML page to continue application processing.
Commonly-assigned, copending application Ser. No. 09/559,637, filed Apr. 28, 2000, entitled Browser Based Arrangement for Developing Voice Enabled Web Applications Using Extensible Markup Language Documents, the disclosure of which is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference, discloses generation of an HTML document usable by a user to create or modify a stored XML document to define a voice application operation. The application server generates a prescribed HTML form and inserts selected application parameters from the XML document. The HTML form is supplied to a browser, enabling a user to input or modify application parameters for the corresponding XML document into the form. The application server, upon receiving the form from the web browser, inserts the input application parameters into the XML document, and stores the XML application document for execution.
As described previously, a primary concern is the ability to customize HTML forms. The use of customize HTML forms is particularly important in developing customizable web applications, for example self-administered user applications that enables a user to self-customize his or her web application, for example in the case of a subscriber desiring to adjust his or her settings in a unified communications system such as the commercially-available Cisco uOne system (4.1S).